Mumbai, Feb 23 (NIE): The Bombay High Court Friday directed four men to perform community services at Mahim Dargah and Mahim Kabrastan for four consecutive Sundays to get cross-FIRs, they had filed against each other in an assault case, quashed. The court said since two of the petitioners were Hindus, they could instead clean the Siddhivinayak temple in the city.

Rahim Ansari and Mohammad Shaikh had submitted the petition before the high court, making two others, Ashutosh Meher and Bhushan Pednekar, respondents. In the petition, the men, aged between 18 and 22 years, had appealed the cross-FIRs they had lodged against each other be quashed.

The petition said on December 12, 2017, when Ansari and Shaikh along with their friends were visiting Makhdoom Shah Mahim fair around 9.30 pm, their friend had pushed Meher and Pednekar, who in turn assaulted Ansari and Shaikh. One of them was injured in the incident and had undergone treatment at Bhabha hospital.

The men had filed cross-FIRs against each other under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code on charges of unlawful assembly and assault at Mahim police station. However, all four of them had come to a settlement and approached the high court urging it to quash the FIRs they had lodged against one another.

While the the division bench of justices B P Dharmadhikari and Revati Mohite-Dere, agreed to quash the FIRs, it directed the men to perform community service for four consecutive Sundays from March 3.